Are male ux designer better than female or vice versa

While men and women can reach similar conclusion and make similar decisions, why there is still gender difference in certain jobs? If you are from India you must know this, ‘Boy or girl?’ is the first question parents are asked about their newborn.

Right from the birth why are we so concerned to even know it is boy or girl or whether men or women will fit for this position? I have seen in job posts – “WANTED MALE SALES PERSON”, “WANTED WOMEN RECEPTIONIST”, isn’t it evident that our gender restricts to get into our preferred job? What could be the reason? Why employers are so concerned about genders? Do you think women cannot travel so much whereas men can travel and men cannot be polite to people as good as we? Hmmm, that could be the reason? Then aroused a question, could it be some psychological reason?

Probably we should look into some psychological studies what difference these genders possess. I started reviewing some studies which happened with thousands of people, all I got is psychological studies itself is in a dilemma as some says “Men and Women are same” and to contradict this some studies says “No way, Men and Women are not same”. I would like to highlight some appealing difference in genders from the studies – Emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, social boldness, sensitivity and openness to change. Will you be happy if I categorize you under any one of the above, I am pretty sure each one of us will say no I don’t belong to this category!! The saddest part is our employers have already given you one of those label depending on our gender and still try to measure by fancy methods – stress analysis/ Team spirit/ pressure management.

So woman cannot perform well as a “sales person” is what the employers came up with these analyses and started hunting for male sales person? Can you sense a little disappointment there? Many may and few may not get disappointed (I would like to hear your views on this), but if you personally anticipate an answer from me I say, women possess a completely different thought process when deriving a solution or taking decisions compared to men.

I am not here to validate the employers’ psychology towards gender and how well it works, but all these provoked to think about my field “male UX designers differ from female UX designers?”

I got into a working environment where there is a mix of male and female UX designers, so I don’t think my employer is fond of “Gender psychology” or may be this “Gender psychology” doesn’t exist in UX field. No, I don’t want to conclude here. Let us investigate more on the behaviors of men and women designers to get deeper insights. UX professionals are habitual to think about their users, communicate with users and design for users, but who (men or women UX designers) cares more is what we have to find.

We design products that are used universally- physically challenged person, children, male, female and elders and we have to make people “emotionally connected” with our design to retain them. Emotional thinking – men in general take decisions without being emotionally affected whereas women in general take into consideration of details which most men outlooks. I have always seen men around me (my dad, friends, and colleagues) as an independent thinkers or decision makers as they fail to understand any individual. Women have been global thinkers tend to have a broad or collective perspective and view elements in a mission as interconnected or interdependent. Let us take a remarkable example from our everyday life – every mom gets to know or understands her kid or her man even before they communicate which is tough for a dad to adopt.

Next most important thing as a UX designer is communication and connecting with users. Certain studies have revealed that the “communication center inside a woman’s brain is much larger than the communication center inside a man’s brain and women pay special attention to words, read in between lines and can notice the body language of people along with their facial expressions”. Connecting with people through communication and making them comfortable could be easily achieved by women as they always outstands men in hospitality industry.

“Given that 59% of the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism workforce is female, the only job roles in the sector that are female-dominated are front of house hospitality roles, such as waiting staff, bar staff and catering assistants, and travel agency consultants”

How about having an everyday example? You must have noticed when we have guest in home it is our mom who makes them feel comfortable, so hospitality starts right from women. So it is another challenge to all UX men to adopt/practice the inborn quality to be a UX designer.

So is there any challenges faced by women in design industry? My colleague and I had a conversation about women in the gaming industry. Why in gaming industry men are high in numbers? On our discussion we concluded men play more games and will possess high affinity towards gaming industry. As an active user they could derive solutions easily and satisfy their fellow player’s expectation. Perhaps the personal interest is the center for men and women to get into a particular industry and easily practice the characteristics required. From the UX perspective, the natural qualities of women have to be practiced by men.